Another Pontoon Bridge, Beaufort

[JPK Huson 1863]

It's like Christmas if I find a pontoon bridge I haven't bumped into before, this one I think must be using the schooner as a means to maintain it, or maintain while building it? Tough to tell. This feat of engineering was explained to me in another thread, from a photo of one of the massive bridges across the James.

 

[AndyHall]

Maybe a pier rather than a bridge to the other side.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

That makes sense, thank you! Funny, I'm just used to looking at piers and small docks with permanant structures in place, it never occured to me one would have been made out of pontoons. Engineers missed nothing, talk about creative thinkers.

I wish someone would enlighten me on which pontoon bridge it was which was built while Confederate sharpshooters in the city on the banks kept up a game of picking off the construction engineers. forcing them to keep running out onto the bridge, bang some of it together, run off again under fire. ( I know it's book 2 of Shelby Foote's trilogy, can NOT remember what the situation was, hence which city, drat it. ) Finally a screaming bombardment of the city was ordered, houses flattened, mayhem ensued and afterwards it transpired the sharpshooters were right back at it. D*m memory. I'll know all this kind of thing after the second re-read.

 

[DaveBrt]

That makes sense, thank you! Funny, I'm just used to looking at piers and small docks with permanant structures in place, it never occured to me one would have been made out of pontoons. Engineers missed nothing, talk about creative thinkers.

I wish someone would enlighten me on which pontoon bridge it was which was built while Confederate sharpshooters in the city on the banks kept up a game of picking off the construction engineers. forcing them to keep running out onto the bridge, bang some of it together, run off again under fire. ( I know it's book 2 of Shelby Foote's trilogy, can NOT remember what the situation was, hence which city, drat it. ) Finally a screaming bombardment of the city was ordered, houses flattened, mayhem ensued and afterwards it transpired the sharpshooters were right back at it. D*m memory. I'll know all this kind of thing after the second re-read.

Fredericksburg

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Thank you!! My Kindle does this maddening thing which is not helpful- I think the programmers fondly imagine it IS. I'd purchased the Audio and print seperately. Somehow, if you're on a different chapter in one, the d*m thing will adjust itself to match. Makes me crazy since I generally do not WANT them in the same place- I'm re-reading something in print I didn't understand very well initially on the audio. Kindle has a ton of drawbacks regardless, there's just no way to kind of thumb through the pages and the updated version got rid of the word-find the more 'primitive' version had. I just could NOT find the Fredericksburg battle even after looking, so thank you!

That's an awfully good section, btw. Shelby Foote just has a way of making a movie kind of run in your head- you can see this stuff as it unfolds. Generally I only get that ( believe it or not ) from some of the official reports of battle and movements written by those involved at the time.

 

[Ray Ball]

That makes sense, thank you! Funny, I'm just used to looking at piers and small docks with permanant structures in place, it never occured to me one would have been made out of pontoons. Engineers missed nothing, talk about creative thinkers.

I wish someone would enlighten me on which pontoon bridge it was which was built while Confederate sharpshooters in the city on the banks kept up a game of picking off the construction engineers. forcing them to keep running out onto the bridge, bang some of it together, run off again under fire. ( I know it's book 2 of Shelby Foote's trilogy, can NOT remember what the situation was, hence which city, drat it. ) Finally a screaming bombardment of the city was ordered, houses flattened, mayhem ensued and afterwards it transpired the sharpshooters were right back at it. D*m memory. I'll know all this kind of thing after the second re-read.

The bridge of which you speak is the product of the 15th NY Engineers at Fredericksburg. The bridge builders finally had to have infantry moved across in pontoons to clear the banks of the Rappahannock of rifle pits and houses in Fredericksburg of sharpshooters in order to complete the work. But the Engineers got it done-Essayons!

 

[bdietzler73]

Great photo! Thank you for sharing.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

Yes, and it's one of the huge, huge benefits of belonging to this forum, gee whiz! There should be a ' Like AND thanks a zillion times ' option. I can't count the number of times I've posted a photo I was either confused by or just, plain liked and someone had a TON of information on it. Or I'll already have read about something, the photo makes it all the more real.

It's like with the Red River Dam, once I'd become aware of the whole story, you start looking around for every, single report and narrative you can get your hands on, don't you? The Fredericksburg bridge- whoa, built under fire like that. I've often wondered what the civilans felt, yes, the Rebels were able to harrass and pick off the enigineers from sniping points within the city, but then it brought down all kinds of heck on their homes because of it.

I have a pic somewhere of A pontoon bridge at Fredericksburg, not THE bridge, just one from later in the war.

 

[Ray Ball]

Thank you!! My Kindle does this maddening thing which is not helpful- I think the programmers fondly imagine it IS. I'd purchased the Audio and print seperately. Somehow, if you're on a different chapter in one, the d*m thing will adjust itself to match. Makes me crazy since I generally do not WANT them in the same place- I'm re-reading something in print I didn't understand very well initially on the audio. Kindle has a ton of drawbacks regardless, there's just no way to kind of thumb through the pages and the updated version got rid of the word-find the more 'primitive' version had. I just could NOT find the Fredericksburg battle even after looking, so thank you!

That's an awfully good section, btw. Shelby Foote just has a way of making a movie kind of run in your head- you can see this stuff as it unfolds. Generally I only get that ( believe it or not ) from some of the official reports of battle and movements written by those involved at the time.

I agree about the Engineers and the statement about Shelby Foote. His was one of the first things I read about the war and its stil among my very favorite works. I love his style of narrative.

 

[JPK Huson 1863]

It is interesting, hearing what and who snagged people's interest the most, and first. We had CW ' ancestry ', just seemed to have an awareness of it, plus Dad always had a tattered copy of Bruce Catton open upside-down somewhere. ' Killer Angels ' and Shelby Foot in Burn's documentary were the gateway drugs for me, I think? So, so elementary for 99.99% of most of the forum, I just used to tool around by myself before bumping into the forum. Not at all well, either. There's just TOO much.